Paper Tiger: Impeach the IRS Commissioner?
Posted: September 10, 2016 Filed under: Censorship, Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, Politics, Think Tank | Tags: Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Floor (legislative), Freedom Caucus, Impeachment, Internal Revenue Service, John Fleming (American politician), John Koskinen, Louisiana, Republican Party (United States), United States House Committee on the Judiciary 1 CommentCongress should fulfill its constitutional duty to police executive-branch lawlessness. Don’t hold your breath.
“Congress has become a paper tiger within our tripartite system.”
These Republican leaders’ reasons are cumulatively unpersuasive. Resuscitating the impeachment power would contribute to revitalizing Congress’s Article I powers. Impeachments are rare — no appointed official of the executive branch has been
impeached in 140 years. But what James Madison called the “indispensable” power to impeach should not be allowed to atrophy, as has Congress’s power to declare war.
[Read the full text here, at National Review ]
Here are a few pertinent facts. At the IRS, Exempt Organizations director Lois Lerner participated in delaying for up to five years — effectively denying — tax-exempt status for, and hence suppressing political advocacy by, conservative groups. She retired after refusing to testify to congressional committees, invoking the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.
Koskinen, who became commissioner after Lerner left, failed to disclose the disappearance of e-mails germane to a congressional investigation of IRS misbehavior.
[George Will wrote about this in October of 2015, too: The Case For Impeachment]
Under his leadership, the IRS failed to comply with a preservation order pertaining to an investigation. He did not testify accurately or keep promises made to Congress. Read the rest of this entry »
THE PANTSUIT REPORT: Judge Orders Clinton, Aides Not to Delete Emails
Posted: August 10, 2015 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Law & Justice, White House | Tags: Beth Wilkinson, Cheryl Mills, Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Contempt of court, Court order, Emmet Sullivan, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Internal Revenue Service, Judicial Watch, Pantsuit Report, United States Department of Justice, United States Department of State, United States district court Leave a commentJudge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court also demanded Clinton, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin provide assurances by Wednesday that they would not delete any federal records in their possession.
Sarah Westwood reports: A federal judge ordered Hillary Clinton and two of her top aides not to delete any potentially work-related emails after Clinton’s former chief of staff vowed to discard all electronic copies of her records by Monday.
“The destruction of federal documents in the face of a court order is par for the course for a Clinton-related scandal….If not for the swift action of Judicial Watch’s legal team and an alert federal judge, there is no telling what important public information would have been lost forever.”
— Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch
Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court also demanded Clinton, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin provide assurances by
Wednesday that they would not delete any federal records in their possession.
The order came Friday evening in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch seeking documentation of a controversial employment status bestowed on Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, that allowed her to work simultaneously for the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and a consulting firm called Teneo Strategies.
After Sullivan asked Clinton, Mills and Abedin to certify under penalty of perjury that they had each submitted all work-related emails, only Clinton reportedly responded.
Mills and Abedin seemingly ignored requests that they had handed over all their emails as each continued to prepare emails for the State Department. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] IRS Commissioner Insists Law Hasn’t Been Broken, Admits He Doesnt Know the Law
Posted: June 24, 2014 Filed under: Crime & Corruption, Mediasphere, U.S. News | Tags: Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Darrell Issa, Gowdy, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Trey Gowdy, United States House Committee on Ways and Means, Weekly Standard Leave a commentFor The Weekly Standard, Daniel Halper reports: The IRS comissioner insists his agency did not break the law or relevant statutes. But under questioning by Rep. Trey Gowdy, the IRS commissioner also admitted that he doesn’t know the law or the relevant statutes:
“You have already said, multiple times today, that there was no evidence that you found of any criminal wrongdoing,” Gowdy said. “I want you to tell me: What criminal statutes you have evaluated?”
“Common sense? Instead of the criminal code, you want to rely on common sense?”
“I have not looked at any,” the IRS commissioner admitted.
“Well then how can you possibly tell our fellow citizens that there is no criminal wrongdoing if you don’t even know what statutes to look at?” Gowdy followed-up. Read the rest of this entry »